Serenbe Playhouse Launches 'New Territories' Playwriting Residency This January

Serenbe Playhouse and AIR Serenbe (the artist in residence program at Serenbe) are proud to announce a new play development program unlike any other: the 1st Annual New Territories Playwriting Residency, a Writers-in-Residence Program for Outdoor, Site-Specific Plays. New Territories will bring three playwrights to Chattahoochee Hills, GA to develop new outdoor, site-specific theatre from January 17-30, 2016.

While the primary goal of the New Territories Playwriting Residency is to provide a nurturing and supportive space for playwrights to develop new environmental work, Serenbe Playhouse also commits to further developing one or more of these plays in subsequent seasons. By supporting playwrights who share mission and vision, the Playhouse will continue to cement its reputation for exciting, innovative performances of groundbreaking American plays -- all in concert with AIR Serenbe's commitment to artists and their creative process.

The New Territories Playwriting Residency, developed by Serenbe Playhouse's Artistic Director Brian Clowdus, AIR Serenbe's Director Brandon Hinman and playwright Tira Palmquist, builds on the core focus of Serenbe Playhouse: producing artistically rich outdoor, site-specific performances. "After the premiere of my play Ten Mile Lake at the Playhouse, I realized that Serenbe would be the perfect place for a writer's residency," said Palmquist, "and that the company's mission to produce site- specific theater could provide the perfect inspiration for new work." Palmquist will serve as New Territories on-site dramaturg and program facilitator.

Serenbe Playhouse and AIR Serenbe are excited to announce the playwrights for the inaugural year: Joe Calarco, Liz Duffy Adams and David Hilder. "Serenbe Playhouse selects material and performance locations hand in hand. We have a strong mission to expand our support of new works and New Territories will do just that," said Clowdus. "The playwrights are coming with a blank page. They'll explore Serenbe and choose a location that inspires them. That inspiration will spark their pen to paper creating a work that goes hand in hand with the environment they have chosen with the long term possibility of developing into a fully realized production as part of our mainstage season." In addition, Serenbe's resident apprentice acting company will be available for cold reads and table work of the plays being developed.

"We are continually floored by the caliber of artists working with Serenbe Playhouse," said Brandon Hinman. "In 2015 we partnered with the Playhouse to host a residency for Broadway set designer Adam Koch. It was exciting to see Adam have the space and time to dig deeper into the land here in Georgia, cultivate his own practice, and elevate the caliber of the Playhouse's future productions. An ongoing commitment of our program is to provide residencies for artists -- some who have never done a residency -- at pivotal spots in their careers. It is this deep investment in the creative process that grounds our vision. We like to say the work of AIR Serenbe is to nurture critical moments of imagination -- New Territories will do just that."

Serenbe Playhouse is proud to add this new program to its many recent achievements. Recently, Serenbe Playhouse was awarded one of the 2015 National Theatre Company grants from the American Theatre Wing, best known as the creator of the Antoinette Perry "Tony" Awards. In addition, the Playhouse received an award from the NEA to produce the summer site-specific biopic musical Evita, and was also awarded a grant from Georgia Department of Economic Development's Georgia Council for the Arts (GCA) as part of its Partner and Project grant funding for fiscal year 2016.

AIR Serenbe is pleased to add this residency to its offerings. In 2016, they will launch their new Focus Fellowships initiative, with nine award residencies granted to individual artists of every discipline, from throughout the nation. The first in this lineup is Anis Mojgani, poet/illustrator and recipient of The Institute for Child Success Focus Fellowship. Later in the year, AIR Serenbe will offer a project residency to New Orleans-based performance group New Noise and will also partner with Serenbe Film to host 2016's Atlanta Film Festival Screenwriter's Retreat.

Since 2007, AIR Serenbe has nurtured the creative process by providing artists with uninterrupted time & space and a welcoming community in which to create. Since 2009, Serenbe Playhouse's programs have aimed to reduce the barriers between artists and audiences by immersing patrons in an environment that amplifies the beauty of nature, and provides opportunities for engagement, conversation, and collaboration. The New Territories Playwriting Residency will continue these modes of production and immersion by developing new outdoor, site-specific work and by supporting playwright who share that vision.

New Territories will have playwrights on site from January 17th to January 30th. In that time, Serenbe Playhouse and AIR will host two events: 'Speaking of Making' on Saturday, January 23rd where playwrights will discuss their work and process & 'Public Readings' on Friday, January 29th where the playwrights will showcase their new scripts in a rough table read style. Both events will be free of charge and open to all.

Serenbe Playhouse is a professional theatre committed to producing site-specific performances and programs that connect art, nature and community. Serenbe Playhouse believes that theatre as an art form has the unique power to illuminate the human experience. In pursuit of that vision, we produce artistically rich site-specific performances and programming that reduce the barriers between artists and audiences by immersing patrons in an environment that amplifies the beauty of nature, and provides opportunities for engagement, conversation, and collaboration. We use theatre as an artistic educational tool for both artists and audiences. We are a pioneer in modeling Green Theatre Practices by producing plays with a commitment to social responsibility and environmental stewardship. Serenbe Playhouse was founded in 2009 under the executive and artistic direction of Brian Clowdus, an accomplished actor, educator, director and producer.

For more information about Serenbe Playhouse and to purchase tickets, visit www.serenbeplayhouse.com or call 770.463.1110. You can follow Serenbe Playhouse on Facebook, @OnstageSerenbe on Twitter, and SerenbePlayhouse on Instagram.

AIR Serenbe is an artist residency program committed to giving artists the time and space needed to create. A residency experience provides an edge -- this edge is a necessity for the creation of innovative new work. In the vein of residencies, we take inspiration from the long traditions of creative retreat and incubation, ranging from age-old monasteries to Black Mountain College to that sabbatical you have always wanted to take. We are particularly interested in how having artists working in a community contributes to a sense of place. It is our belief that artists help us see our worlds all over again for the first time. In this way, they create a deeper appreciation of place for us all. AIR Serenbe, founded in 2007, began as a volunteer group of Serenbe residents who hosted artists in private homes and donated studio space. We welcomed Brandon Hinman as our first director in 2014. For more information about AIR Serenbe, visit www.airserenbe.com. You can follow AIR Serenbe on Facebook and @airsernbe on Instagram.

About Tira Palmquist:

TIRA PALMQUIST's plays include Two Degrees, Ten Mile Lake (Serenbe Playhouse), Age of Bees (MadLab Theater, Tesseract), And Then They Fell, and others. Ten Mile Lake is a finalist for the 2015 Primus Prize. Two Degrees has been featured in numerous festivals, including the New American Voices festival in the UK, the Caltech 2014 Mach 33 Festival and the 2014 Great Plains Theater Conference, and will be featured in the Denver Center's New Play Summit 2016. And Then They Fell was workshopped by Brimmer Street (Los Angeles, 2015) and the UMass New Play Lab (2014), and will have its premiere at Brimmer Street in Los Angeles in 2016. Ten Mile Lake, which premiered in 2014 at Serenbe Playhouse just outside of Atlanta, GA, was developed and workshopped

in 2012 at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference. Age of Bees premiered at MadLab Theater in 2012 (and was named Best Original Work by the Other Papers "Best of 2012" list), and was subsequently produced in 2015 at the Tesseract Theater in St. Louis. Age of Bees is now available through Original Works Publishing. Her work has been developed by Seven Devils, Inkwell, 9Thirty Theater, The Road Theater, EST-LA and the Theatricum Botanicum Seedlings program. Tira teaches creative writing at the Orange County School of the Arts. She is a member of the Playwrights Union, the EST- LA's Playwrights Unit, the Anteaus Theater's Playrights Lab and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. More info at www.tirapalmquist.com.

About Our Playwrights in Residence:

Joe Calarco's published works include In The Absence Of Spring (also included in The Best Stage Scenes of 2004), Shakespeare's R&J (Lucille Lortel Award), Walter Cronkite is Dead, and his short plays, Just A Little Sniffle and Parting Gifts. Two collections of his plays for young audiences, My Vacation in Paris, Salat, Civil Wars, Aftershock, Shakespeare, Will, Image is Everything, Revolution, Hero Worship and Veni, Vidi, Vici, will soon be published by Samuel French. Other adaptations include A Midsummer Nights Dream and Antigone Renewed (first workshop at the National Theater in London.) His play A Measure of Cruelty was nominated for the Carbonell Award as Best New Work. Monologues from Walter Cronkite is Dead and A Measure of Cruelty are included in The Best Stage Monologues of 2013. His play Separate Rooms was invited to be part of the Page to Stage Festival at the Kennedy Center and he's the book writer for the theater/dance piece Wolf (Theater Raleigh). He wrote the book for the musicals Golden Gate with composer/lyricist Richard Pearson Thomas (developed at Second Stage with a reading at Lincoln Center) and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick with composer Chris Miller and lyricist Nathan Tysen, which premiered in London in conjunction with Mercury Musical Developments, and premiered in the U.S at Barrington Stage Company. He was a contributing book writer of The Audience (Drama Desk Nomination) for The Transport Group. Upcoming: The musical SCKBSTD with songs by Bruce Hornsby and Chip Dematteo, Home Front: a play with songs with composer/lyricist Matt Conner and his latest full length play In The Attic. He was resident playwright at Expanded Arts for two years and is a member of the Dramatists Guild. He is Director of New Works and Resident director at Signature Theatre in Arlington Virginia.

Liz Duffy Adams' play Or, premiered Off Broadway at Women's Project Theater and has been produced some thirty times since, including at Magic Theater and Seattle Rep. She's a New Dramatists alumna and has received a Lillian Hellman Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Weston Playhouse Music Theater Award, MacDowell residencies, and Will Glickman Award (for Dog Act). Other plays include A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World; Off the Clock; Wet or, Isabella the Pirate Queen Enters the Horse Latitude; One Big Lie;and The Reckless Ruthless Brutal Charge of It or, The Train Play. Her work has also been produced or developed at the Contemporary American Theater Festival, Humana Festival, PlayPenn Conference, Portland Center Stage, Flux Ensemble Theater, New Georges, Clubbed Thumb, Cutting Ball, Shotgun Players, and Crowded Fire, among other places. Publications include Dog Act in "Geek Theater: Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy Plays" (Underwords Press 2014); Or, in "Best Plays of 2010" (Smith & Kraus); Poodle With Guitar And Dark Glasses in "Best American Short Plays 2000-2001" (Applause Books); and several plays in acting editions by Playscripts, Inc. and Dramatists Play Service. Adams has a BFA from New York University and an MFA from Yale School of Drama, and was the 2012-2013 Briggs-Copeland Visiting Lecturer in Playwriting at Harvard. She has dual Irish and American citizenship. More at lizduffyadams.com.

David Hilder's plays and musicals include Misfortune (Finalist, 2015 National Short Playwriting Contest, City Theatre); The Moment Before It All Went Wrong (Great Plains Theatre Conference 2015; Finalist, Lark Playwrights Week 2015); Drown (Great Plains Theatre Conference 2014; finalist, 2014 Princess Grace Award; ESPA Drills at Primary Stages); Drop of Kindness (semi-finalist, 2013 NPC/O'Neill Center); The Insidious Impact of Anton (Absolute Theatre - winner, seven StageSceneLA Awards; winner, 2010 Ashland New Plays Festival); Just exactly like (The Flea Theater; finalist, 2010 Heideman Award); Maps (composer, Gilles Chiasson; Dixon Place Not for Broadway Festival; Raw Impressions); Leave the Room (Finalist, Lark Playwrights Week and Abingdon's Wolk Award); Bay Orchard High (Expanded Arts, Cullen/Dumas Productions); Dinner Party! (EST, Smatterfest, Particle Wave Theatre); and, naturally, others. =He is also a director and a recovering actor. Education: MFA, Hunter College; University of Pennsylvania,;the O'Neill Center's National Theater Institute. He tweets, too: @hilderthtrguy. www.davidhilder.com

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